Months after Muddy Waters Capital, a San Francisco hedge fund, shorted shares of a French retailer, a man posing as a Wall Street Journal reporter tried to obtain tactical insight from the fund’s founder, Carson Block, a shocking new lawsuit claims.

The suit seeks to unmask the unidentified fake reporter by forcing Google to reveal the name of the owner of the Gmail account used by the man.

The impostor’s efforts included more than a dozen emails to Block’s p.r. firm, but it was one sent last weekend that finally enabled the short seller to call the bluff, agreeing to meet the “reporter,” according to the suit.

Then, in a dramatic face-off in a restaurant inside the posh Pierre Hotel on Oct. 30, Block confronted the fake newsperson — who promptly ran from the eatery and the hotel, it is alleged.

It took the imposter all of two or three minutes to confess to the scam, Block told The Post.

“He said: ‘If I didn’t say I was with WSJ, you wouldn’t have talked to me,’ ” Block said in a phone interview.

“Apparently, someone has been impersonating a Wall Street Journal reporter.​ Our reporter did not make these inquiries,” a WSJ spokesperson told The Post.

Both the WSJ and The Post are owned by News Corp.

It was, perhaps, the strangest short-selling investment made by Block’s hedge fund.

Muddy Waters Capital initiated a short bet on Casino Guichard-Perrachon in December 2015, and alleged in reports over a three-month period that the retailer was “dangerously leveraged.” The company’s stock soon fell 23 percent and its credit rating was lowered to “junk.”

A second Gmail account targeting Muddy Waters assumed the identity of a personal assistant to a French banker in an attempt to get details about Block’s schedule, according to the suit.

Block thinks the retailer was in some way involved with the Gmail accounts, given that requests focused on Muddy Water’s Casino-related research and his schedule in Paris, the hedgie told The Post.

Reps from Casino and Google did not immediately respond to requests to comment.